


Words

by Kadma32



Series: Our Future [2]
Category: God's Own Country (2017)
Genre: Brexit, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Robyn ships it, language learning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27880917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kadma32/pseuds/Kadma32
Summary: After coming back from Romania, Gheorghe tells Johnny about the "good" sadness of making a life away from the country of your birth. Johnny decides that, maybe, if he were to learn perhaps a smattering of Romanian, he could help him deal with it.Just, well, his plan clashes with a certain, history changing vote...
Relationships: Gheorghe Ionescu/Johnny Saxby
Series: Our Future [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045542
Comments: 18
Kudos: 48





	Words

**Author's Note:**

> Please note English is not my first language and this work is unbetaed. Apologies for any mistakes you might (let's face it, probably will) find.
> 
> I also do apologise if any of the material offends anybody. I do quote something from an interview with Nigel Farage. I don't share his views in the slightest. 
> 
> This work is related to my other story "24th june", but I think it can be read as a stand alone story.

The first time it happened, Johnny did not even notice it, truth be told. He had arrived at the train station way too early, as Gheorghe was going to be back with the very last train of the day (the cheapest flight he found back from Romania was landing at stupid o’clock). But Johnny hadn't been able to sit still at home, fidgeting so much on the couch that his nan had gotten fed up and told him to go, claiming that there was always a chance the plane or the train might arrive early. In what universe, Johnny had thought, but he had just said bye and rushed out.

He checked the time again on the dashboard. Ok, finally, there were only ten minutes to wait. His stupid heart, right then, started pumping much faster than before.

God, I am such an idiot, he thought, rubbing both his hands on his face. It had only been three days, and he was already in this state. Absolutely ridiculous.

He jumped out of his skin when a knock on the car door broke the silence. Gheorghe was there, standing right outside, gentle smile and all.  
Johnny smiled too; he couldn’t help it. The wave of happiness to see his partner again was too strong to resist.  
He opened the door and they met each other halfway in a tight hug.  
‘Welcome back’  
‘Thank you, I’m happy to be back’ Gheorghe replied, nuzzling Johnny’s neck.  
‘And you are also frozen, come on, in you go’ he said, feeling more playful than he had been in the past three days.

They both sat down, and Johnny turned the engine on.  
The silence was peaceful. Johnny loved their long pauses together.

There was space to breathe in those silences.

Then, Gheorghe gave him a gentle punch on the thigh, barely anything at all. Johnny did the same to Gheorghe’s leg. Then Gheorghe replied with two in quick succession. Johnny gave him three, meaning you are here, I am here, and all is well in the world. He knew Gheorghe had meant the same.

It was at that point that Gheorghe yawned, stretched a little on the seat and said something, a long sentence even, of which Johnny understood only “Deirdre” and “Martin”, and even of that he wasn’t entirely sure.  
‘What are you on about?’ Johnny asked.  
‘Oh, never mind’ Gheorghe said, with another jaw wrenching yawn.  
‘Wait, I didn’t get it, I think you spoke in Romanian or something’  
‘Oh, sorry’ Gheorghe replied, looking out of the window to the pitch-black countryside, seemingly not wanting to repeat what he had said.  
‘No bother. Anyway, they are both fine. Grumpy as usual, but fine’ he said. Gheorghe gave him another pat on the leg and relaxed on the seat.

Johnny didn’t think much about that evening, or about how Gheorghe had a strange, wistful look about him the day after, because, after a hard day of work and a welcome home shag, whatever it was, it seemed to go away on its own.

The second day since his return, Gheorghe was back to his usual, practical self.

But that evening came rushing back into his memory when it happened again, a few months afterwards, this time as Gheorghe came back from another very short trip to celebrate Orthodox Christmas back home. Not that he was fussed about it, but his family had insisted. Gheorghe had sighed as he told Johnny that his mother had heavily implied that this could be his grandmother’s last Christmas.  
‘I don’t really believe it, she has been saying that for the past three years’ he had said, as he packed his bag. Johnny did not reply, but he understood better than most that Gheorghe didn’t want to take that risk.

As he parked the car home, Johnny asked:  
‘Hey, you ok?’  
It was late and part of him really didn’t want to have a conversation. He was not good with words, they just made him nervous, and this seemed to be leading to something quite long and difficult. But another part of him wanted to ask so many questions: “are you fed up with living here?”, “do you want to go back to Romania and you don’t know how to tell me?’, “I didn’t meet your expectations, did I?”. Too many words, too many thoughts, they all garbled themselves together in his throat and nothing came out.

‘Yes, all good’ Gheorghe said, patting his thigh and opening the door to get out of the car. Johnny didn’t move for a second. He could let it go, right? Gheorghe would tell him in his own time...or he would not, and he would just have another day of being even quieter than usual, leaving Johnny with his own thoughts. And he had done that, he had done the ruminating, and the letting wounds and worries fester. He was not going to do that again.  
He got out of the car and said:  
‘Tell me’  
‘What?’  
‘What’s going on with you?’ he said. He sounded angry, and he really did not want to.

Stupid frigging words.

Gheorghe smiled. He let the heavy bag on his shoulders down on the floor before dragging Johnny into a tight hug.  
‘I’m sorry’ Gheorghe said, his hands gripping Johnny’s heavy jacket. Johnny didn’t say a thing.  
‘It’s difficult to explain’  
‘Do you want to move back to Romania?’ Johnny said, burying his face even deeper into Gheorghe’s body.  
‘What? No’ Gheorghe replied, disentangling their embrace. Johnny looked everywhere but at his partner, already feeling his ears warming up in shame.  
‘Do you want me to go away?’ Gheorghe said, frowning.  
‘Of course not, what are you own about?’ Johnny replied, not even understanding fully how Gheorghe could even consider such a thing.  
‘You are the one always coming back with a sad face like a beaten-up dog’ Johnny replied. Damn it, stupid, stupid, stupid Johnny, how was he always sounding fed up?  
‘It is a difficult thing to explain’ Gheorghe smiled again, if a little tense this time before saying:  
‘Let’s go inside, it’s very cold and that I have to say might take some time’  
Johnny nodded and followed him in as his mind ricocheted from one theory to the next. He said he didn’t want to go back, was he lying? Gheorghe never lied to him. Had he found someone else? How, they were always together on the farm. Was there someone in Romania he fancied and this Mr someone had decided to move to the UK for work? Johnny clenched his fists. It had to be that, right? It was the only thing that made sense.

That thought festered into him as he sat with Gheorghe at the table where Deirdre had left him something to eat. He could have warmed the past up a little, but Gheorghe had said that he was fine with it, cold pasta was ok.  
As quietly as possible, they moved up to their room. They were silent for what felt like forever, in Johnny’s mind, but then Gheorghe finally said:  
‘I didn’t want to scare you. I am sorry’  
‘It’s ok’ Johnny replied, fearing his heart was going to jump out of his throat. Gheorghe exhaled.  
‘I don’t really know how to explain it. Where to start’  
‘From the beginning I guess’  
‘Smart ass’  
‘Where did you learn such words?’ Johnny said, faking distress. The joking around helped relieve the tension a little, but it was only a delay.  
Gheorghe took a deep breath before saying:  
‘You have to understand that living away from where you grew up is the most exciting thing one can do. The amount of possibilities, the people you meet’ Gheorghe said, his warm hand cupping Johnny’s right cheek.  
‘ But there is always a little hole, a little bit of, I guess, absence, of who you were before and the people you were with before’  
Johnny exhaled through his nose as he rubbed his hands on his legs, not knowing where to put them. Gheorghe grabbed one hand and squeezed. Johnny tried to take it back, but Gheorghe squeezed a little more.  
‘So, you go back to visit. And you are not who you were before. The life you remember is like a dream and the people still love you, but for them now you are like a “guest of honour”, which is nice, but not what you wanted’  
‘You could have it back if’ Gheorghe squeezed his hand again, with a meaningful look of “let me finish”.  
‘And, at that point, you notice that there is another burning point in your chest, because you terribly miss the life you built, the life that wasn’t entrusted on you but that you chose. And so, you come back and then it starts all over again. You end up belonging everywhere and nowhere’  
‘You are saying you are unhappy’ Johnny said, frowning, trying to digest what he knew was the most amount of words he had heard Gheorghe say in one sitting.  
‘I am happy, I am the happiest I have ever been’ Gheorghe replied, taking Johnny’s other hand within his too.  
‘What I’m trying to say is just that there will always be a piece of me missing, here missing my family in Romania and there missing you and England. But that sadness is ok. It’s good’  
Johnny was going to ask how on Earth was sadness ok? He had been in the black, dark pits of sadness, and no, he did not recommend the experience to anybody. But Gheorghe smiled and said:  
‘I even missed the rain’  
‘Shut up’  
‘And that stupid drizzle’  
‘Whatever’  
‘But I missed you the most’ he said then pushing Johnny down on the bed.

Johnny woke up with a new resolution in mind. He needed to find ways to help Gheorghe with the transition between his two countries, right? Helping with that good sadness. He could find a way, right? Gheorghe had shown him that he could take on the burden of the farm and make it work, sure he could do this for him. Just getting on with it wasn’t the option anymore.  
But what could he do to make it better? He understood animals, machinery and now even budget management. This was something else entirely. The more he thought about it, the more he could not find a way. And then, Robyn came to the rescue.

She was back home for the weekend from her new, fancy job in York and had insisted on having a pint at the pub.  
‘Come on, come on, it will be fun! I have seen you love birds in forever!’  
‘Shut up’ he replied, glad that he was on the house phone and she couldn’t see his embarrassed face.  
‘Come on, please’  
‘Ok, we will be there’ he replied, rolling his eyes while on the phone, but he was secretly quite pleased to see her.

He was nervous the whole time, waiting for an opening to ask Robyn’s assistance. He was almost certain that he was never going to find the time. Gheorghe drank at the speed of a stunted snail; he was never going to excuse himself to go to the bathroom or something.  
And then his opening came. On the television, which until a moment ago was giving some football match on, there were more updates on the Brexit campaigns. Brexit, what a stupid name, Johnny had thought, not giving too much thought about this whole thing. It all sounded like some mess the pompous gits in Westminster had come up with. He had always wished, from the bottom of his heart, for some of those people in their perfect smocks to come up north, to his patch of land, and make their hands dirty. They made a lot of noise talking about British farmers problems, but what did they really know? He would have loved to see them squeal while dealing with cow and sheep.  
‘I need to make a phone call’ Gheorghe said, before rushing out, right before that guy, Mr Farage or something, appeared on the screen. He seemed a nice bloke, more down to Earth than the others, enjoying a pint at the pub like Johnny himself liked to do. Johnny had heard him talk sometimes before, and what he said seemed to make sense: why should we be regulated by a faraway organization with no idea of what is going on?

But then he heard him say:

“Police figures are quite clear that there is a high level of criminality within the Romanian community in Britain. This is not to say for a moment that all or even most Romanian people living in the UK are criminals. But it is to say that any normal and fair-minded person would have a perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door.”

‘What is he own about?’ he said, frowning, his eyes still glued to the telly.  
‘I don’t know’ Robyn said. He saw her shaking her head from the corner of his eye.

Johnny went back to watch the guy talk, mostly because he found it amusing. Right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved in next door? The words circulated in his mind and, for a moment, he just wanted to laugh. He would have wanted to go to Mr Farage and tell him that, when his Romanian had moved next door, he was the one with the right to be “concerned”, having moved in next to a bunch of British people with severe communication issues.

But he had more pressing matters at hand.  
‘I need your help’  
‘Tell me you want to propose’ Robyn said, slamming both hands on the table and grinning like the Cheshire cat.  
‘Yes, no, wait, what?’  
‘Propose to him! You somehow got the best catch of the day, what are you waiting for?’ she squeaked in delight, and probably amusement at his ears turning redder.  
‘We will see’ he had considered it. God if he had considered it, but it was not the right time yet.  
‘Anyroad’ he said, recomposing himself before asking her opinion on what Gheorghe had told him.  
‘Uhm, I remember a friend I had at university saying something similar….ever thought about learning Romanian? Maybe that could help him when he is back? You said that time he was so tired he didn’t even realise he spoke in a different language. If you spoke Romanian enough to understand at least the gist of it, that could help him’  
Johnny nodded as he considered the idea. The thought was frightening though. He had never been the academic type, and learning a whole new language sounded scary. But Robyn did have a point. The few times he had heard Gheorghe talking on the phone with family back home, he had noticed the little smile on his face.  
And the sounds. He had no idea what they were talking about, and yet, sometimes, he was just enthralled by it.  
‘How would I even go about it? Don’t have the money for a teacher or anything’  
‘There are plenty of resources online’  
‘You know that doesn’t really work up there’ he replied, frowning. Was the idea already dead in the water?  
‘I mean, you could always ask him to help you’ she said, winking. He remembered a few times when, in the after-sex glow, he had asked Gheorghe how to say certain things in Romanian...but, well, there were usually other thing on his mind in those moments. Doing it properly, like a teacher and a student, would not work. He could just picture it, Gheorghe patiently trying to make him say stuff, pronounce it even, and him getting stressed and throwing everything out of the window. Nope, not useful, if the point was to help Gheorghe.  
‘You could always opt for dear old pen and paper, right?’ Robyn said, taking one long sip of her pint.  
‘Look’ she said, slamming the glass back down.  
‘I will order something for you, take it as a good luck charm from me’  
‘I will get it delivered to mine. I will have an excuse to drag you out here again’ she said, sticking her tongue at him.  
‘Cheeky git’  
‘And you love me for it’ she said, smiling proudly right when Gheorghe came back to the table.

The book didn’t take long to arrive, and Robyn passed it to him surreptitiously when Gheorghe had gone to order some more drinks. Since then, Johnny tried to find every possible way to read a bit without being noticed and, in all honesty, mostly ended up smuggling it when going to the bathroom before hiding back in those secret corners of their ancient house where he knew Gheorghe would never look.

The beginning parts were easy. Easy ish. He tried to read over and over again the days of the week, the names of the months, and numbers one to ten. But, right when he thought he had memorised, right when he was sure that Tuesday was joi and Thursday was marţi, he would check again only to discover that it was the other way around, leading him, more than once, to be very close to throw the wretched book in the bathtub as he ran a bath for the two of them or for Martin. Not that the book didn’t deserve it, the stupid smiling lady on the cover was really irritating, but it would have been a waste and it had been a present after all.

For as much as he was maybe learning how to read things, he wasn’t sure his pronunciation was correct, or that he could really understand someone speaking it. So, trying not to be obvious, he listened in every time Gheorghe counted things under his breath, like any wadge of money they got after selling some animals.  
‘You do it in Romanian?’ he asked him once, after Gheorghe checked he had counted the money right. He felt immensely proud of himself, he had recognised all the numbers from one to ten.  
‘Yes, it’s faster’ Gheorghe replied.  
‘Do you’ Johnny stopped in his tracks.  
‘What is it?’  
‘Do you think in English or Romanian?’ he finally asked.  
‘Why all the questions?’ Gheorghe said, as they got back in the car to head back to the farm.  
‘Nothing, just curious’  
Gheorghe studied him for a moment before saying:  
‘It used to be fully Romanian, and I had to translate stuff in my head before speaking. Now it comes mostly automatically in English’  
Johnny nodded, as in his mind he just marvelled. Gheorghe could think in a language that was not his own, while he was still struggling to remember how to say “I am, you are, he is” in Romanian. They could have at least come up with a language easier to learn, for fuck sake, just the verb to be had six different forms only for the present….how was he ever going to make a full sentence?  
Robyn encouraged him to continue, saying stuff like “Imagine how impressed he is going to be when you can tell him something properly”. So, for now he continued, and the book’s fate was still not one of destruction.

Soon, the sentence ‘Eu sunt Johnny. Sunt englez, I am Johnny. I am English’ became a sort of mantra for him, using it in his mind to relax instead of counting to ten. In his head, he imagined the sentence said with Gheorghe’s deep voice, giving him hot shivers down his spine and making work, suddenly, much more entertaining.

But progress was slow. He really needed to find something more useful. Maybe getting over the embarrassment and asking Gheorghe would be the best course of action.

And then Brexit started to become more and more of a pressing issue, taking away that little attention Johnny already gave to language learning to more pressing matters.

Somebody not used to Gheorghe’s quiet attitude to everything wouldn’t have noticed it, but every time Farage, or Johnson, or that other weirdo called Rees-Mogg or something appeared on the telly screen in the evening, Gheorghe’s body became just a little rigid. At times, he moved his eyes away from the television, till Johnny had the good spirit of changing the channel. Deirdre never asked or complained, as Johnny suspected that she had figured how all those talks were making Gheorghe uncomfortable.  
They never talked about it, even though they probably should have done, but, every time he thought about bringing the topic up, his intention shattered at the thought of Gheorghe, or Deirdre, saying something he didn’t really want to hear. He knew all too well that it takes one moment, sometimes one word or one action, to shatter everything one had built, and he didn’t want to hear Gheorghe telling him that, if they were to go forward with that “point system” palaver, Gheorghe could have some points for speaking English, but he didn’t have some high flying, techy job or something like that, and he might have to go back.

Just the thought, the idea of having that conversation with him, would send Johnny’s heart rate through the roof.

One day, they had just popped into the village to get a few bits and bobs in the local shop, when, in a place that never changed, Johnny spotted a little table out in the square with three people around it and piles over piles of leaflets, with a few boxes under the the table, presumably with more leaflets. As they passed by, minding their own business, the wrinkliest woman Johnny had ever seen stopped him.  
‘Vote Brexit and get our country back’  
Johnny looked at the woman for a moment. And then the words came out natural, unprompted, as if they had always meant to be:  
‘Eu sunt Johnny. Sunt englez’.  
He then grabbed Gheorghe’s arm and dragged him out of there, till they finally stopped at the shop they needed.  
‘Come on, we need stuff’ he mumbled, pushing the door, but Gheorghe stopped him.  
‘What was that?’  
‘That woman pissed me off. I know you are probably going to tell me she is entitled to her own opinions and’ he was saying, rolling his eyes at the sure to come telling off for being rude and stuff. Well, not all British people are fucking baronets with a cucumber up their ass, thank you very much.  
‘Not that, the stuff you said. Where did you learn that? That was’  
‘Romanian, I know’ Johnny said, looking everywhere but at Gheorghe, who was certain to have some friggin proud smile on his stupid face. He wanted to tell him to stop immediately, that it was nothing, that he honestly could only say the numbers from one to ten and was still getting the days of the week confused.  
Stupid book.  
‘When? What? How…’ Gheorghe said, sounding like a broken record.  
‘Robyn bought me a book to study’ he mumbled. Great, the surprise was ruined. Stupid, stupid Brexit lady.  
‘Can we just go in? Nan will tell us off for being so late’  
‘Do you want to learn? Why do you want to learn? Why didn’t you tell me’  
What a stupid question, he wanted to say. Why was he even asking? Wasn’t it normal to want to do it? Wasn’t it normal to want to destroy any potential barrier between them?  
He lifted his gaze up, feeling strangely angry with Gheorghe for forcing him to talk. Well, if he wanted his words, he was going to give them to him.  
‘Because you said that you are distressed the first few days every time you come back from Romania. So, I thought that I could help it a bit, the transition, if you could speak to me in Romanian for as long as needed’ he said, before storming into the shop. He couldn’t take that stupid, proud smile, he couldn’t take the feeling of being so naked in front of someone he loved. As quickly as he could without bumping into anything or anybody, he grabbed what they needed from the shelves. His skin prickled as Gheorghe got closer.  
Gheorghe took his hand before he could close on a beer bottle.  
‘Te iubesc’ Gheorghe said.  
‘What?’  
‘For your language practice. Look it up when we are home’.  
‘Fine’  
‘Do you want me to help with studying languages? I can help and’  
‘And you would be great, Mr Patience incarnate and all. But thanks, I can manage’ he replied, wanting the words to hurt a little, but Gheorghe instead was beaming like he had seen him do only a few times.

In the privacy of the bathroom as he run a bath for Martin, he found that stupid sentence in the book.  
It meant “I love you”.  
‘Idiot’ he muttered under his breath as he closed the book.

The day of the vote, neither he nor Deirdre went to vote, as Johnny and Gheorghe were busy on the farm and Deidre was busy with house chores and looking after Martin. It was ok though, right, the predictions were for the Remain camp to win, right?

He went to bed, confident that this whole nightmare was going to end soon, that he was never going to see Gheorghe scared every time a Westminster idiot appeared on telly, only to have the illusion come crashing down on him the morning after. For the first time in forever, he woke up before Gheorghe. He checked the alarm, and it was way too early even for them, but, for as nice as the thought of staying in bed with Gheorghe was, he needed to check the results. As quietly as possible, he put on some clothes and rushed out.  
Deirdre was already awake and had turned the radio on in the kitchen as she prepared some breakfast.  
Quietly, he slipped in the kitchen, took a long sip from the milk carton, and asked:  
‘News?’  
She turned to him and, with a darkened expression on her face, she shook her head no.  
But Johnny understood what she meant. The other camp had won. Suddenly, his whole body itched to do something, his hands burning with the desire to channel the rage he was feeling growing in his chest. Without a word, he rushed out, hoping that working with the beasts could help him.

It didn’t. I really didn’t. The more he mucked about, the more the two parts of himself warred with each other in his mind. He thought it was right to have control on the land, he thought it was right to not have a bunch of bureaucrats in another country make decisions for them. And then he thought of Gheorghe’s thoughtful expression, the tension in him in all the previous months, and all the others like him probably feeling the same, in a place that they called their home, where they had built the life they “chose”, like Gheorghe had said. So yes, he could believe all he wanted, but it was not right for people to be scared.

And it wasn’t right that, after all the work he had done to improve, after all the heartache and all, the spark that had started the fire of his desire to improve himself risked being taken away from him.

‘John’ Gheorghe called him. Johnny knew that he had been there for a little while now. But he had not said anything, there were too many thoughts, too many things rushing around and he was scared they were going to get scrambled up again and come out all wrong.  
And they did. He opened the gates, and the anger came out. It felt like, before Gheorghe, before his mad rush to Scotland to take him back, his anger was violence, booze, and meaningless sex. Now it was shouting and screaming at the injustice of everything, in a world he was not sure he fully understood.

And Gheorghe, once again, calmed him down, as he always did. In the warm embrace of his partner’s arms, he struggled to understand how he was not yet bored of his antics, how he was not running away to the hill and beyond.  
With his head a little clearer, Johnny thought that, maybe for the time being, he needed to put the language learning aside and concentrate in helping Gheorghe apply for the citizenship stuff.

Suddenly, repeating strange words in his head while looking at that stupid smiling woman on the cover of his language book sounded a lot more appealing than what they were doing then, spending a lot of time looking for all the possible documentation they could find and covering the whole living room table with it. Johnny’s eyes felt incredibly tired and dry as hell as he read for the gazillion times the list of accepted documents and stuff.  
He only needed a look on Gheorghe’s mortified face to find the sprint to keep going and, suddenly, for the first time in forever, that old saying of his father, that “we will manage” he always hated, that very British “keep calm and carry on” had a new meaning. This was difficult, this seemed way beyond his means, but he was going to find a way through it because it was important.

He was not a fuck-up anymore and he did not intend to go back to be one ever again.

And he did it. He was there, every step of the way.

The day a letter came from the Home Office for Gheorghe, about three or four months after they had finally sent everything out to them, Johnny wanted nothing else but to shout in happiness. It was there, there was an answer, and it had to be the right answer, right? With all the work they had put in…  
But, even with Deirdre’s grumpy encouragement, Gheorghe didn’t move. The letter that could spell his freedom to go in and out of that god forsaken island of theirs was there for the taking.  
And that very taking was sharing Gheorghe. Johnny could see it in his eyes, a little wider than usual, and in his jaw , which set so tight it was a miracle his teeth were not breaking.  
It was time to take a last stand.

‘Do you want me to open it?’ he said, as gently as he could. The words, for once, flowed out of him without anger or fear. For once, Gheorghe needed him to be the strong one. He interlaced his fingers with Gheorghe, sure that the physical contact could help him.  
When he saw his partner nodding ever so slightly, Johnny smiled a little, trying to be as encouraging as possible.  
‘You sure?’  
‘Yes’.  
It was good to hear Gheorghe’s voice, strengthening his resolution.  
Slowly, to give him time to object if he changed his mind at any point, Johnny opened the letter.  
He lifted his head, smiled to the ceiling as a wave of relief washed over him, before going back to the letter and saying:  
‘You are invited to a citizenship ceremony! You need to book it, it says, and you need to pay for it, of course, because why would they make it easy for you now, and’  
Gheorghe hugged him with such strength that Johnny couldn’t breathe for a moment. For one, perfect moment, Johnny wanted nothing more than to stop time and have the two of them forever in that state of bliss. He had not fixed the problem of the “good sadness”, but he had sustained Gheorghe right when that second home he had built seemed to crumble around him.  
‘Marry me’  
Had he heard him, right? Surely, he had to be mistaken.  
‘What?’ he asked, his heart racing a million miles a second. He saw nan, a few steps away, smiling a little, the first time he had seen her doing that in so fucking long.  
‘Marry me’  
The answer had been with him all along. He passed his hands-on Gheorghe’s neck, needing to feel his skin under his skin and said:

‘Yes’

He needed to prepare himself for Robyn's high pitched squeals.

Oh, shit. He was definitely needing to get his Romanian up to standard now if he was to meet his in-laws!

**Author's Note:**

> The scene when Johnny answers in Romanian to the lady with the leaflet is taken from personal experience XD It was just too funny to see her expression after being answer to like that by the most British like person you can possibly imagine.


End file.
